T
he surface to air missile (SAM) system,
known in the Soviet Union as the 9K33
‘Osa’ (Wasp) and as the SA-8 ‘Gecko’ by
the US and NATO, was accepted for service
in October 1971 and made its public debut on
Moscow’s Red Square in November 1975.
The pace of concurrent rocket system
development was such however that by the
time the original version of the Osa was being
demonstrated on Red Square, a signifi cantly
modernised system was already being tested
for service.
The 9K33 Osa system was subsequently
modernised several times during its relatively
short service life. The original range and
altitude ceiling remained largely unchanged, but
with reaction time and minimum engagement
distances being signifi cantly reduced on later
versions of the system.
While the missile system was a logical
development of earlier SAM systems such as
the 2K12 ‘Kub’ (NATO: SA-6 Gainful) fi elded
by the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s, the
9K33 Osa system was mounted on
an entirely new chassis that had
little commonality with any earlier
Soviet military vehicle – wheeled ortracked.
The new
self-propelled
launch vehicle
was a wheeled
6x6 confi guration
that was capable of
crossing the same terrain as
tanks and was also fully amphibious. It was
developed and built by a manufacturing plant
which was largely unknown in the West at the
time – the Bryansk Avtomobilny Zavod (BAZ),
located logically enough in the city of Bryansk
in western Russia near the border with modern
day Belarus.
In Soviet times, the BAZ plant in Bryansk
offi cially built heavy industrial tractors, but in
reality the great majority of development and
production was for the Soviet armed forces.
The basic technical specifi cations for the new
6x6 all-terrain chassis for the Osa air defence
system were defi ned at ZiL in Moscow as early
as 1961.
Meanwhile, in the early 1960s the decision
was made to undertake series production
of special (ie primarily military) chassis at
Bryansk rather than in Moscow, hence the
re-designation of vehicles such as the ZiL-135
developed at the ZiL plant in Moscow as theBAZ-135. The BAZ plant subsequently
built the ZiL designed 8x8 wheeled
chassis for the 9P140 “Uragan” multiple
rocket launcher and the 9P113 ‘Luna-M’
(NATO: FROG-7) tactical rocket as the
BAZ-135LM (LMP).
The delegation of all-wheel drive special
purpose military vehicle production to
BAZ was not incidental. The BAZ plant had
prior experience of all-wheel drive vehicles,
having earlier produced the ZiL-485/485A(BAV/BAV-A), a Soviet modifi cation of the GMC
DUKW amphibian, a number of which had been
provided to the Soviet Union under the wartime
Lend-Lease program. The plant was also by the
mid-1960s producing the ZiL Moscow designed
ZiL-135 as the BAZ-135 so all-terrain and
amphibious vehicle development experience
was latent at the plant.
BAZ was thereby more than able when tasked
to undertake the development and production
of new and smaller 6x6 amphibiousIN THE TAIL
While the missile system was a logical
development of earlier SAM systems such as
the 2K12 ‘Kub’ (NATO: SA-6 Gainful) fi elded
by the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s, the
9K33 Osa system was mounted on
an entirely new chassis that had
little commonality with any earlier
Soviet military vehicle – wheeled ortracked.
The new
self-propelled
launch vehicle
was a wheeled
6x6 confi gurationIN THE TAILIN THE TAIL
S
The fi nal chassis for the Osa SAM system,
now designated BAZ-5937, with an enlarged full width crew cabThe least well known of the Osa vehicle
series was the 9V11M technical
support vehicle based on the
BAZ-593 chassisThe original prototype BAZ-937 SPU
vehicle for the Osa SAM system, 199The 9033 Osa SAM system was provided
with a dedicated 9T17 TZM reload
vehicle based on the BAZ-5939 chassis